Does 'rape culture' accurately describe (many) societies?

For me at least, I consider the conversation mostly shut down by the OP's Prohibition-like position on this issue. Their goal seems to be to convince people that the appropriate reaction to the various societal ills related to pornography is to get everyone to agree that we should ban it. The assumption that we CAN ban it effectively is baked in and not really up for discussion. Non-ban ideas for mitigating the problems are presumed to be bad because porn is bad and needs to be banned and who would want to work around that? Nasty porn enjoyers that's who! Child perverters! Etc!

One of the (genuine) problems is kids using porn as sex ed. But the solution can't be giving kids better access to quality, age-appropriate sex ed, because the kind of sex ed that actually gives kids enough context to understand and navigate the world around them is REALLY just part of the ongoing efforts of those darn godless liberals to usurp parental control and expose your kids to ideas you don't trust them to reject over your superior ones. Because they'll do stuff like metaphorically compare porn in general to junk food, instead of comparing porn to straight up poison that will contaminate you if you see any.

Like, I too am bothered by the audience for some of the nastier porn, but all of that is still easier to keep some control of when the hosting is transparant and legal. Then we can complain when things actually do cross a legal line; and then when the problem is that enforcement of legal standards is not effective, we can demand more teeth for the enforcing entities.
 
There's more than one hobby horse in this race, though Poem's is currently on track to lap the others.

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For me, this is one of those things that I wouldn't be surprised if it actually is true. But when someone tries to traduce my provisional and non-actionable assumption into uncritical acceptance of the premise, and whole-hearted support for a call to action, I start to think, if that's the best you can come up with maybe I shouldn't provisionally assume it's true.
 
Oh, yeah, I mean.. For instance I could easily be convinced by evidence I found compelling, that society as a whole would be better if there wasn't any mean-spirited porn out there. But whether the steps you'd have to take to actually get rid of all of it would a) be worth it vs the side effects of those efforts and b) actually work very well, are not at all settled even if I agree with the premise.
 
Ziggurat said:
You say that as if post 895 was your first post, but it isn't.
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I understood the context to be since posting the HCE report.

And frankly, I don't trust you or your source. The guardian story has a link to the report but it's broken so I can't access it.
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https://www.haut-conseil-egalite.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/hce-synthese-rapport_pornocriminalite27092023.pdf

And my highschool French is bad enough that I couldn't understand it if it isn't translated. So I can't double check any of this.
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Google: Translate

But what I see in the story makes me suspicious. The guardian story has the quote, "As much as 90% of pornographic content online features verbal, physical and sexual violence towards women". What the hell is "verbal violence"? I have no idea what they're counting as verbal violence, nor do they give a breakdown of how much of this alleged 90% is not verbal, but it's not hard to imagine fairly innocuous dirty talk being categorized as such. And I have no idea how they're getting their sample in order to make these measurements either.
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The report runs to some 214 pages and in the press release it states:

The figures are clear: 90% of pornographic content features unsimulated acts of physical, sexual or verbal violence against women. In these millions of videos, women, caricatured in the worst sexist and racist stereotypes, are humiliated, objectified, dehumanized, violated, tortured, subjected to treatment contrary to human human dignity and...French law. In fact, some of this violent content meets the legal definition the legal definition of acts of torture and barbarism. The women are real, the acts of sexual acts of violence are real, and the suffering is often perfectly visible and at the same time eroticized. Pornography is not cinema.
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Also, they cite:
Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography videos: a content analysis update (16th Oct, 2010 - Ana J Bridges, Robert Wosnitzer, Erica Scharrer, Chyng Sun, Rachael Liberman). From the Abstract:

This current study analyzes the content of popular pornographic videos, with the objectives of updating depictions of aggression, degradation, and sexual practices and comparing the study's results to previous content analysis studies. Findings indicate high levels of aggression in pornography in both verbal and physical forms. Of the 304 scenes analyzed, 88.2% contained physical aggression, principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7% of scenes contained verbal aggression, primarily name-calling.
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The French public prosecutor's endorsement of the report isn't insignificant. Where are your studies that show that porn contains other than 90% violence? AFAIK, the porn industry merely appeals to 'free speech'.

All of which makes me wonder how far away this really is from the claim that "all PIV is rape" (the acronym standing for penis-in-vagina). Do you think that position, at least, is a step too far?
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Why have you posted this?...a super-radical feminist's....

Also - #791 & #793
 
Lithrael said:
For me at least, I consider the conversation mostly shut down by the OP's Prohibition-like position on this issue. Their goal seems to be to convince people that the appropriate reaction to the various societal ills related to pornography is to get everyone to agree that we should ban it. The assumption that we CAN ban it effectively is baked in and not really up for discussion. Non-ban ideas for mitigating the problems are presumed to be bad because porn is bad and needs to be banned and who would want to work around that? Nasty porn enjoyers that's who! Child perverters! Etc!

One of the (genuine) problems is kids using porn as sex ed. But the solution can't be giving kids better access to quality, age-appropriate sex ed, because the kind of sex ed that actually gives kids enough context to understand and navigate the world around them is REALLY just part of the ongoing efforts of those darn godless liberals to usurp parental control and expose your kids to ideas you don't trust them to reject over your superior ones. Because they'll do stuff like metaphorically compare porn in general to junk food, instead of comparing porn to straight up poison that will contaminate you if you see any.

Like, I too am bothered by the audience for some of the nastier porn, but all of that is still easier to keep some control of when the hosting is transparant and legal. Then we can complain when things actually do cross a legal line; and then when the problem is that enforcement of legal standards is not effective, we can demand more teeth for the enforcing entities.
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We haven't effectively banned slavery.

'We can complain when things actually do cross a legal line'?

The report affirms the line is currently being crossed 90% of the time. The French public prosecutor agrees. Barnardo's cited the report in their submission to the Online Safety Bill.
 
theprestige said:
For me, this is one of those things that I wouldn't be surprised if it actually is true. But when someone tries to traduce my provisional and non-actionable assumption into uncritical acceptance of the premise, and whole-hearted support for a call to action, I start to think, if that's the best you can come up with maybe I shouldn't provisionally assume it's true.
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When did this happen?


Also - #874
 
The UK's Children's Commission's report of January 2023: "A lot of it is actually just abuse" essentially has the same findings as the French report:

Throughout my career as school-leader I have witnessed the harmful impact of pornography on young people, first-hand. I will never forget the girl who told me about her first kiss with her boyfriend, aged 12, who strangled her. He had seen it in pornography and thought it normal.

Let me be absolutely clear: online pornography is not equivalent to a ‘top-shelf’ magazine. The adult content which parents may have accessed in their youth could be considered ‘quaint’ in comparison to today’s world of online pornography. Depictions of degradation, sexual coercion, aggression and exploitation are commonplace, and disproportionately targeted against teenage girls.
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Poem said:
Also, they cite:
Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography videos: a content analysis update
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You should have gone with this in the first place, since this is their only source for the claim.

But let's examine this claim in a bit more detail. We need more than just the abstract (though we can start there), so here's the full paper, since you couldn't be bothered to find it even though it's at the heart of your argument:
https://www.researchgate.net/public..._Pornography_Videos_A_Content_Analysis_Update

Here's the abstract:

"This current study analyzes the content of popular pornographic videos, with the objectives of updating depictions of aggression, degradation, and sexual practices and comparing the study's results to previous content analysis studies. Findings indicate high levels of aggression in pornography in both verbal and physical forms. Of the 304 scenes analyzed, 88.2% contained physical aggression, principally spanking, gagging, and slapping, while 48.7% of scenes contained verbal aggression, primarily name-calling. Perpetrators of aggression were usually male, whereas targets of aggression were overwhelmingly female. Targets most often showed pleasure or responded neutrally to the aggression."​

First off, your translation of the French report used the term "violence". But their source doesn't. Their source uses the term "aggression". There's a difference, especially with regard to the verbal. Verbal aggression can be real, but verbal violence is just bull ****. And verbal aggression in this context is mostly name calling. Oh my god, adults talk dirty during sex.

OK, what about physical aggression? Even just in the abstract, we see that spanking tops the list. Is spanking violence? Well, I suppose it could be, but it's also a kink that a lot of people enjoy, and a spank doesn't have to be hard or really even painful. And there's a GIANT gap between playful spanking during sex and sexual assault or rape.

And if you dig into the data (Table 1), you see that the mild end of the spectrum of "aggression" dominates. For verbal aggression, they had 614 scenes with insults, but only 10 scenes with threats and 7 scenes with "coercive language". There were 980 scenes with slapping, but only 3 scenes with kicking and zero scenes with a closed fist punch.

The French public prosecutor's endorsement of the report isn't insignificant.
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Yes, it very much is.

Where are your studies that show that porn contains other than 90% violence?
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YOU don't have a study showing 90% contain violence. You have a study showing 90% aggression, and the threshold for that aggression (not violence) is pretty damn low.

And I don't need my own study. I'm not the one making the positive claim, you are. The burden of proof is on you to support your claim, I'm just scrutinizing it. And your evidence is coming up short.

I'll give another example of a problem with your data. And in the interest of intellectual honesty, I'll even concede that this flaw might be under-representing the current situation (though that's absolutely not a given), but nevertheless it's indicative of how shoddy your research is. Do you know how they sampled porn for this study? They used a list of 50 random porn videos selected from the top 250 most rented videos from December 2004 to June 2005. Not a bad sampling choice for the time, but NONE of this is internet porn, and it's almost 20 years out of date as well.

Why have you posted this?...a super-radical feminist's....
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Because I'm seeing less and less daylight between that and you.
 
Poem said:
Throughout my career as school-leader I have witnessed the harmful impact of pornography on young people, first-hand. I will never forget the girl who told me about her first kiss with her boyfriend, aged 12, who strangled her. He had seen it in pornography and thought it normal.
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Why would a 12 year old thing that choking is normal while giving a kiss, even if they saw it in porn? The only thing I can imagine is that they don't see their own parents kissing, because they don't have both parents living together.

I've been saying for quite some time that the dissolution of the two parent family is a major social problem. Porn is just easier to blame, even if it's not the main problem.
 
Ziggurat said:
Why would a 12 year old thing that choking is normal while giving a kiss, even if they saw it in porn? The only thing I can imagine is that they don't see their own parents kissing, because they don't have both parents living together.

I've been saying for quite some time that the dissolution of the two parent family is a major social problem. Porn is just easier to blame, even if it's not the main problem.
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Nothing here that explains the behaviour of this 12 year old. Dads not being there somehow leads to children learning to choke?
 
A 12 yr old boy picking up 'normal dating behaviour' from violent porn, would have to have access to violent porn and not have access to any other examples of dating behaviour, in real life or on TV or anything. I have to suspect there were some unexplored layers to this anecdote.
 
Poem said:
Nothing here that explains the behaviour of this 12 year old. Dads not being there somehow leads to children learning to choke?
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Dads not being there leads to kids not knowing what a normal relationship looks like.

Kids need fathers. Bad things happen when they aren't there.
 
Ziggurat said:
The French report you linked to.
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I linked to the press release which cites the Bridges et al study. That much is true. What I am asking of you is to justify your assertion that, 'this is their only source for the claim'. The whole tenor of your post was that the HCE report relies only on this source and that it (the source) does not substantiate the claim.
 
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Ziggurat said:
Dads not being there leads to kids not knowing what a normal relationship looks like.

Kids need fathers. Bad things happen when they aren't there.
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Whilst I agree about the benefit of the father being there, this does not explain a kid choking a girlfriend at 12 years old. Exposure to mainstream porn does.

Does a mother know what a normal relationship looks like? Do teachers?
 
Poem said:
I linked to the press release which cites the Bridges et al study. That much is true. What I am asking of you is to justify your assertion that, 'this is their only source for the claim'.
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Because it's the only thing they cite to back up that percentage. If they had more, they would cite more.

The whole tenor of your post was that the HCE report relies only on this source
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It relies only on that source for that percentage, yes, absolutely. They make other claims as well, and use other sources for other claims. I'm addressing this specific claim, since it's one you chose to repeat as central to your argument.

and that it (the source) does not substantiate the claim.
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It substantiates their claim with some major caveats which seriously undermine the strength of your argument, including the fact that "aggression" as they have defined it is not synonymous with "violence" as it is commonly understood, and the fact that none of the porn they examined was internet porn.

You have not even touched upon the substance of my criticism.

Poem said:
Whilst I agree about the benefit of the father being there, this does not explain a kid choking a girlfriend at 12 years old. Exposure to mainstream porn does.
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On its own, no, it does not. Kids see stuff all the time without assuming that it's normal or even real. We don't have an epidemic of children hurling themselves off of buildings because of superhero movies. Why did this kid think that what he saw was normal? There's a missing piece here, and you seem determined to not only ignore it yourself, but insist that the rest of us ignore it as well.

Does a mother know what a normal relationship looks like?
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I should bloody well hope so, and if she doesn't, you should be asking why not.
 
The closest thing to this kind of 'kids picking up the wrong idea' I've personally seen happen in real life, was a young guy who ignored the red flag that his girlfriend threw violent tantrums and broke his stuff all the time, because there's enough 'ugh my GF is such a bitch' stuff in pop culture, and GF's being vindictive in sitcoms, and a lot of comedies where everyone is just mean to one another, etc, and he thought that was why; that a lot of normal relationships were just like that.

I guess that does show how 'harmless' 'c'mon it's just funny,' mild pop culture misogyny can have negative effects on young men.
 
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Poem said:
This is where we are with slavery; why would we balk at porn? We know porn producers are profiting right now from the brutalization of women, so why are we hesitating? Arrest them and take down their content and then there could be a discussion about whether porn could be made safe.
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We banned slavery.
We did not ban the things slaves did or the products they produced.

Forcing people to do farmwork is slavery, and illegal.
Hiring people to do farmwork is not slavery and is legal.

Forcing people to do household chores is slavery, and illegal.
Hiring people to do household chores is not slavery and is legal.

Forcing people to perform in sex videos is slavery, and illegal.
Hiring people to perform in sex videos ....
 
Scepticism eats itself. Is their any point to any of this thread? Is this an argument for an argument's sake? Useless.

No doubt someone will tell me I don't have to read it. Whatever...

Debate, of itself, is useless. It might be handy if one is deciding what to do. (Higher taxes, or not; ban abortion, or not; kids, shall we go to the cinema or to the zoo?)

Useless.
 
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